General News of Thursday, 11 July 2013

Source: Joy Online

Election Petition: Afari-Gyan accused of misleading court

Petitioners in the Election Petition hearing have accused the Electoral Commission Chairman of misleading the court by printing four sets of pink sheets for each polling station.

The Electoral Commission has always held the position that it printed only two sets of pink sheets for the 2012 election.

But when court resumed hearing on the 43 day, Philip Addison, counsel for the petitioners insisted he has evidence to show that the Second Respondent did not only illegally print two sets of pink sheets but printed duplicates and quadruplicates of pink sheets.

Addison started the day with a cross-examination of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan on the duplication of serial numbers on pink sheets.

He went through more than five lists of pink sheets that have duplicate serial numbers- a fact pushed by the petitioners and which Dr. Afari-Gyan affirmed.

Having tendered the list of duplicated serial numbers of pink sheet, Addison probed the EC Chair on why he printed more than four sets of pink sheets for the election.

“Dr. Afari-Gyan you have told this court that you printed two sets of pink sheets, as if that was not bad enough, how do you explain triplicates and quadruplicates?”, Addison asked.

Dr Afari-Gyan responded that "logically there should be no triplicates. I cannot understand how there should be quadruplicates," he said.

"The evidence in exhibit X shows that four sets of pink sheets were printed," Addison probed further, but Dr Afari-Gyan insisted only two sets were printed.

Addison then suggested to the witness that he was misleading the court, a charge Dr Afari-Gyan vehemently denied.

Meanwhile, a lot more list of pink sheets are expected from the petitioners, which have raised concerns from the parties and the court about how this affects the expeditious trial.